means A large, round summer fruit with a hard green rind and sweet, juicy red (sometimes yellow) flesh dotted with seeds, eaten fresh or chilled.

from A straightforward English compound — 'water' plus 'melon' — naming the fruit for its famously high water content, with 'melon' itself tracing back through Latin 'melo' to Greek 'mēlon,' originally meaning 'apple' but loosely applied to all sorts of round fruits and gourds. The plant itself is far older than the English name, native to Africa and cultivated for thousands of years.